Gov. Isidro Zayco yesterday asked National Power Corp. president Cyril del Callar to address the power shortage that has been hitting Negros Occidental during peak hours by providing the province with 15 one-megawatt modular generators as a temporary solution.

Zayco made the appeal on the request of Central Negros Electric Cooperative officials.

CENECO general manager Sulpicio Legarde Jr. and Board Member Edward Gasambelo met with the governor yesterday to explain the power situation.

Negros Occidental has been experiencing a daily 25-megawatt power shortage during peak hours from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. when NPC cannot sustain its supply, and needs the modular generators to help prevent brownouts, Lagarde said.

He said CENECO has been experiencing an 11-megawatt load shedding problem, while the V-M-C Rural Electric Service Cooperative and the Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative have a combined peak hour shortage of 14 megawatts.

Legarde said that “To mitigate the problem CENECO is rotating the brownouts in its coverage area everyday by 15 minutes per feeder, we do not want to concentrate the brownouts in one area.”

He said NPC had promised to send the 15 diesel-powered one-megawatt generators to Bacolod to mitigate the problem but has not done so yet that is why they were seeking the help of the governor to help lobby for them.

“Supposedly NPC will provide us with ancillary generators so  that if and when there is a drop in the steady supply of power there would be reserve generators that would take over,” he said.

NPC was the one who offered the generators to Negros Occidental as a stop gap measure before big generation plants start operating, he said, citing the Energy Development Corp. 49-megawatt geothermal power plant in Bago City.

Since NPC is falling short of its power supply contract with CENECO it promised to sell the Negros cooperatives the power from the diesel-powered generators at P2.90 per megawatt, a subsidized price by the government, Legarde said.

The production cost of diesel power now is about P16 to 19 per kilowatt hour, he said.

The First Farmers co-generation plant will also start operating by November and is likely to be able to sell CENECO a minimum of 5 megawatts, he said.

Legarde said so far the cheapest power is from hydro electric plants with production cost at P1.50 per kilowatts hour, followed by geothermal at P4.50 although it is currently selling in the Visayas at a government subsidized rate of P2.90. Wind cost P19 and solar P27 per kwh, he said.

Renewable energy like the geothermal power Negros consumes is also not covered by the 12 percent Value Added Tax, he said.

“When the geothermal power plant in Bago starts production, Legarde said CENECO hopes to buy power from it. Since the plant is near CENECO we will also pay less for transmission cost, he said.”*CPG

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